Roxon represented the lower house seat of Gellibrand in Victoria for the Australian Labor Party; from the 1998 federal election until her retirement in August 2013.

Post politics, Roxon was appointed an adjunct professor at Victoria University, board chair at VicHealth, and at HESTA.

She is the second of three daughters and the niece of the late Australian journalist and Sydney Push member Lillian Roxon.

[4] She ultimately came to the view that "governments have got a role to make sure they can help people in circumstances they can't control—either through their health failing or an accident".

[5] Roxon was elected to the comfortably safe Labor seat of Gellibrand in 1998, succeeding longtime member Ralph Willis.

[6] Roxon made headlines during the 2007 federal election campaign when, on 31 October 2007, then Health Minister Tony Abbott arrived half an hour late for a televised debate.

After apologising on behalf of the absent party to the audience of media and health industry figures, Roxon had the debate to herself and made light of the situation by stating that her staff felt she did a good impersonation of Abbott and could play his part.

[10] In 2012, Roxon was featured in the Australian Story television program in an episode entitled "Kicking The Habit", about her advocacy for plain cigarette packaging.